Henri Matisse has long been one of my favorite artists. In fact, in spite of the fact that he probably isn't my favorite artist to study or even look at, he has probably influenced me more than any other artist. I never chose to use bold colors, but it's certainly a strength of mine, and Matisse's paintings, particularly A Glimpse of Notre-Dame in the Late Afternoon, absolutely helped me to understand that my use of colors works in the public eye.

One thing that I've been concerned with is using archival materials. I've done a fair amount of my own research on the matter and try to work with materials that will last. However, I'm always impressed with how conservationists are able to maintain, and sometimes improve, works of art that were not created using the most archival materials. I stumbled upon MoMA's restoration of Matisse's Swimming Pool and was completely impressed by the fact that it took the conservationist 2000 hours to remove the burlap fibers behind the paper cutouts that Matisse had originally hung on his studio's walls. Often times they removed the threads one at a time! That's about one year's work just to remove the burlap. Impressive stuff. Check out the article and the video here, or just check out the video below.

A Glimpse of Notre-Dame in the Late Afternoon (1902) Albright-Knox Art Gallery